


If You Wait

by ithinkyourewonderful



Category: The Bletchley Circle, The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-07-10 13:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15950477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ithinkyourewonderful/pseuds/ithinkyourewonderful
Summary: "It's an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco."It's the 1960s and the world is changing... And somehow that change is conspiring to bring Susan Gray and Millie Harcourt back into each other's orbits by way of Susan's daughter Claire.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> _I will trust in time that we will meet again, if you wait._

_1956 - San Francisco, California_

“So you’re mind’s still set.You’re not going back?”  
“I’m still not going back Jean.”Millie Harcourt’s voice bounces off the walls in the dark of the room they share in their rented flat in San Francisco.“I can feel your brow raise from here.”  
“Can you now?”Jean asks, her accent betraying her attempt at being stern. 

From across the room, Millie can hear the rustle of sheets, the movement of shadows cast by streetlights.  A car drives by the too-thin window panes.  After a moment, she feels the weight of Jean settle on the edge of the bed. “Move over then.”  Millie follows Jean’s instructions, a habit she can’t shake.  The older woman lays in beside her and wordlessly, Millie rolls over and rests her head on the other woman’s shoulder.  She wonders when the last time anyone has comforted Jean the way she’s comforting Millie now. 

“I can’t go back, not when - I know that there’s a different way of life here.”  
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”  
“Not in the least.”  
“That’s my Millie, foolhardy and brave.”  
“And I can’t wait anymore.I can’t stay in London, waiting.”  
“I know dear.I know.”

They never mention who Millie is waiting for.Jean is nothing if not exceptional at keeping secrets.She’s so good at it, others don’t even realise the weight she silently helps them carry. 

“Don’t worry Jean, I won’t be alone.I’ve got Iris and Hailey and Edward.Archie… Even Olivia, if the stars are aligned just so.” She smirks at the thought of the understandably standoffish woman.  
“Oh, I’m not worried.”Jean pauses, “Well, I am worried, but mostly because I’ll miss you.”  
“You’re always welcome to stay.”  
“You know I can’t.But I’ll visit.”She brushes Millie’s hair with her fingers, “You just be sure to get a good stiff bed for your guest room.These soft ones are murder on my back.”  
“I promise.”

 

* * *

 

_1957 - Bombay, India_

Susan Gray sits on the veranda of her home in Bombay and lets the breeze wash over her.It had been a hot day, hotter than expected for February.She used to hate the noise, always noise, that surrounded her everywhere she went in Bombay, but she had come to find it soothing.A wave of white noise washing over her and then receding, helping her find her footing, no different than the waves at the beach which made her nervous as a child, always afraid she’d get swept away.  
  
Even in with the street noise, she can hear Timothy’s newspaper rustle as he turns the page.  

She smiles. 

There are some routines that they cannot seem to shake.  She has come to enjoy nights here - so different from…home. The weather could be so draining that everyone welcomed the nights, if only for a break from the sun.  Some nights she and Timothy would go out, not dancing, but out where others danced.  Where she was put on display.  It was a necessary part of Timothy’s job, and while she’d gotten more adept at smiling when appropriate, laughing when required, and of asking questions she already knew the answers to, he had seen the toll on her and they had begun to stay home more.  

“Tea, Mem Sahib?”  
“Thank you Ayah.”  
  
She is thankful for the interruption, the distraction while she pours tea for herself.There’s a pile of correspondence beside her from home, the top of which was one with Jean’s crisp hand.She sips her tea and stares at the envelope with as much concentration as she had once given other letters, other characters.It’s a battle of wills between herself and the envelope, one she -  
  
“Mum?”  
“Hello darling.”She greets her young daughter is on the veranda in her robe, book in hand.  
“Sam is being too noisy upstairs.May I read here with you?”  
“What about reading with father?”  
“Can’t I read here with you?”  
“Come here then you.” Susan sighs and shifts the letters to her lap.Claire curls up against her side and places her book on her lap, but doesn’t begin reading.Instead she looks at her mother’s tea cup.“Mum, can I have a sip?”  
“No.”  
“Why not?”  
“Because you’re here to read, not drink mum’s tea.”  
“Mum, is that a letter from Auntie Jean?”  
“Yes dear.”  
“Can I read it?”  
“Why don’t we read it together?”  
“Alright.”

Claire takes the letter and opens it, as if it were nothing, as if Susan hadn’t been trying to gather the courage for the last 40 minutes or so.Her mind floats as Claire reads the letter out loud.She can all but hear the forced frivolity of her last letter to Jean.The false cheer as she asks about the returned Christmas card that had been addressed to Millie.Her ears perk up as news of Lucy shifts to a trip abroad she had taken with Millie and how Millie had decided to stay in San Francisco. 

“Where’s San Francisco mum?”  
“It’s very far away from here, in California.”  
“California?”Tim’s voice joins them as takes a seat beside her.“What’s in California?”  
“Auntie Jean and Aunt Millie went on a trip there.”  
“Really?” He asks, eyeing his wife as he leans over and takes a sip of tea from her cup.“Do you remember your Aunt Millie, Claire?” He asks, wrapping an arm around his wife.  
“She was very pretty, wasn’t she?”  
“She was.”Susan confirms, her eyes scanning the letter for any other news of the other woman, but finding none.“And so very clever.She speaks 7 languages.”  
“Seven?!Which seven?”  
“What a good question, and maybe I’ll answer it tomorrow, but right now, I think I see Ayah here, ready to take you to bed.”  
“Can’t I stay up? Even a little bit?”  
“No button, you cannot.But you can have a sip of tea.”Tim offers his daughter the cup and grins at his wife.  
“Am I never to have a cup to myself?” Susan laughs, thankful for her husband, for his understanding of her moods.    
“Sorry darling, what’s yours is mine and all that.”They say good night to their daughter and stay like that on the veranda, his arm around Susan, sharing tea from one cup, talking about…everything.Anything. 

Tim wishes he could wish these women out of his wife’s life.The odd letter or card from Lucy was fine, but Jean’s letters could trigger days of introspection in his wife.The absence of cards and letters from Millie seemed to be worse than if she had actually written.He doesn’t understand them.He doesn’t understand his wife, but he loves her, wholeheartedly.Some nights he wakes up and watches her as if she were a stranger.There are whole other dimensions to her that are hidden, that lay undisturbed beneath her calm exterior.When he is in a particularly unkind mood, he wonders if they’re hidden to her as well.If she ever wakes up and wonders who she is?He would ask Millie, apparently they roomed together all those years ago, but there’s something about the other woman that leaves him uneasy. He resents it, but he suspects she would be the only one to have the answers to all the questions he has about his wife.  
  
So he remains vigilant for these letters, these cards, he arms himself with endearing tactics, with methods of distraction, anything within his means to leave her a trail she can use to find her way back to him.

 

* * *

 

_1966 - Berkeley, California_

   
_Dear Aunt Millie -_  

_I hope you forgive the intrusion - Auntie Jean suggested I reach out. To be honest, I don’t even know if I should call you Aunt Millie, but that’s what mum and father refer to you as.I remember meeting you once in England, you had the loveliest hair and unlike most adults, didn’t speak down to me._

  
Millie Harcourt puts down the letter rises, looking for her cigarettes.She had been trying to cut down, but if there was ever a reason… She lights up and stares at the letter on the kitchen table.Why hadn’t Jean warned her?Of what, she doesn’t know, but still Jean should’ve told her something she sulks to herself, knowing it’s childish.She takes one more drag before squaring her shoulder and returning to the kitchen table where she sits down, and continues reading Claire’s letter.

_I’ve been accepted into UC Berkeley’s Engineering program (amongst others) (Father said that’s boastful, mum says it’s the truth)._

 Millie smiles, and can’t help but feel proud of Susan’s daughter.

_Before I confirm my registration, mum and father are anxious about the distance.Auntie Jean has mentioned you live in the area and that you may be able to help me find something suitable to appease my parents?_

Millie finishes the letter and puts it down. Now she could well and truly be cross with Jean.Jean knew what she was doing - that sly Scot had waited all this time for her revenge for making her make the trip back to London on her own (She’s aware she sounds crazed, but she has no other recourse right now). 

Since Jean had left, Millie had worked hard and had become a professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley.She had bought a house in some pitiful semblance of setting down roots.She had planted a garden.She had many, many hats to keep her fair English skin just so.She had friends and suitors.She had a life. 

She takes another puff of her cigarette.

She even had a so-called mother-in-law unit she rented out to certain students to help her from being too alone, to help watch the house while she traveled on school breaks and holidays.The question now was, would one of those students now be Susan’s daughter? 

She ponders that all night, and even most of the next day, when a brief letter from Jean arrives, mentioning that young Claire had asked for her address for unknown ends.Allowing Claire into her life, would mean allowing Susan, in some way back in, and she had spent entirely too much of her life dedicated to the ghost of the other woman.The students who roomed with her understood (and occasionally shared) her proclivities and she allowed them theirs.She wouldn’t risk her or their safety or education, even for Susan’s daughter.But by denying Claire this, she would be putting up another artificial (and frankly bullshit) barrier in front of what was likely a brilliant woman.She would be doing to her what so many others had done to Susan.Millie wanted to help, but she could not spend the rest of her life in service to the Gray women. 

She jots down a short letter to Jean rife with choice words (as well as her love) and then begins her letter to Claire.

_Dearest Claire -_

_Congratulations my darling, clever girl on such a wonderful opportunity.Your Aunt Jean and I are as proud of you as I hope your parents are!_

A _s it so happens, I may be able to help you assure your parents as well as help secure residences here in Berkeley.There’s a number of them in the town.I also have two students stay with me, and Mariam has just graduated and left us for Los Angeles, which means I have a room as well.I do warn you however, my students are … untraditional, but delightful.If you can arrange to visit a few days earlier, you can see for yourself if you think it would suit you?_

Both letters go into the mail the following morning.There is now nothing else Millie can do, but wait for Claire’s decision. 

 

* * *

 

And that’s how Millie Harcourt finds herself in San Francisco International Airport waiting the flight from Bombay to land. 

She paces.

She plays with the clasp on her purse. 

She paces some more and regrets not bringing a book despite knowing full well that had she, she would’ve been too nervous to read it.As passengers begin to exit the customs hall, she asks herself why she’s ever even agreed to it.Why she’s picking at the scab that is Susan with the edge of her fingernail, checking to see if it’s healed and knowing full well it hasn’t.She’s so engrossed by this introspection that she doesn’t see the flight disembark, until Claire pulls up short in front of her smiling.“Aunt Millie?”

“Claire! My darling, look at you!You have grown since I’ve seen you last!”  
“It’s been a few years.”Claire smiles sheepishly as Millie hugs her briefly, praising every deity she’d studied that the young woman favoured her father so strongly.  
“Indeed!How time flies!How was your flight? Was it simply awful?Let’s go get your bags and you can tell me all about it.” 

* * *

 

Soon, Claire Gray becomes a friend in her own right. 

She’s almost as bright as her mother, but with a confidence, a spark for life that seems separate from either of her parents.She’s quiet, thoughtful, but charming and funny.Millie is thrilled to discover that she gets along rather well with Simon, the other student who boards with her.She is so enchanted by life in California, similar to Millie when she first arrives - so foreign to their previous homes.She’s hardworking, industrious, and tenacious, curious almost to a fault.She is desperate to learn about her mother through Millie who knows her so differently, but she gets vague answers, changes of topics.She is fascinated by her Aunt who is so utterly different than her mother that she cannot fathom their friendship other than how could anyone not be drawn to the Millie, but inquiries to her mother and Auntie Jean are met with similar vague responses.Claire has concocted a romantic backstory - perhaps Millie was in love with her father, who instead chose Susan.Or perhaps it was another solider who broke her mother’s heart for her Aunt and then died in battle.That would explain the distance, between the two women, wouldn’t it?She tried to ask Auntie Jean:

_Surely there was one person who was her favourite?Whose letters she’d read and re-read?Perhaps…_

But Auntie Jean simply responded with:

_I don’t quite remember as it was all so long ago._

And her mother:

_Oh darling, I don’t quite know.I suspect Millie’s too much of a free spirit to be tied to anyone or any place for too long.Now tell me, how are you doing? Your brother sends his love, as does your father and both have promised to write._

And Simon, the boy who shares the lower flat with her, who pointedly mentions that she never has men visit, but Claire is undeterred.She isn’t a dumb woman, far from it.She’s aware that the relationship between her mother and her aunt is complicated and strained, though each woman has nothing but admiration and deep rooted love for the other.She can infer that much from how they talk around the other, about the other, but never to each other.Each asks her to pass along their best wishes, their love, their thoughts to the other as if she was Western Union - but neither of them actually write or talk to the other. So she continues as she can, gathering snatches of information here and there, the mystery expanding from just her Aunt’s supposedly tragic love affair to how this could possibly include her mother.

 

* * *

 

_1967 - January - Bombay_

 

“Letter from Claire arrived today.”Timothy says, greeting his wife as she sheds her coat in the front hall.  
“Really, share!”  
“Not until I get a proper hello.” He chides, smiling, as his wife bends to kiss him where he sits in his chair reading his paper.  
“Hello you.”She says, settling on the arm of his chair.  
“Hello you.”  
“Letter now?” She grins, holding out her hand, excited for news from her daughter.Calls were so dreadfully expensive that they reserved them for holidays and emergencies, saving the day to day details of their lives for massive letters.From the thickness of the envelope, she can tell this one includes pictures and she begins by looking through them first.There’s one of Claire in a paper crown by the Christmas tree - the look on her face making it clear someone is making her pose for a proper picture.The one after that is a nicer one, with Claire genuinely smiling.There’s a third, of Claire at the table laden with a holiday meal, surrounded by people her age - Susan flips the picture over and looks at their names and then flips the picture right-side up and matches names to the faces she’s only imagined from her daughter’s letters: there’s Simon, who shares the flat with her (much to her concern) and Gerald, Anna, Catherine, Laura & her brother Louis while the handful of older guests go unnamed.The last picture all but knocks the breath out of her - her daughter and Millie in matching crowns, pulling faces at each other.She runs her finger over Millie’s image.She hadn’t seen a picture in… had she even seen a picture of Millie since she’d left other than the slightly singed one from their Bletchley days?She had aged (they all had), but was still lovely.Her hair in disheveled curls.Her lips still coloured and dark.Still slim, still elegant.Still…utterly Millie.“I wonder if anyone told them their faces could get stuck like that?” Tim quips quietly, taking the pictures from her hand and placing them back into the envelope.“Now, tell me about your evening love.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note 1: I had been toying with a Millie/Susan fic a few year's back, but never got past some plot notes. After the first episode of Bletchley Circle: San Francisco, the idea of Millie, our explorer landing in San Francisco seemed perfect and it all fell into place from there. The first part of the prologue was written prior to Jean deciding to stay, so it's a little more clunky than I'd like... But there you have it.
> 
> Author's Note 2: I'm already half-way completed the story and the entirety has been fully drafted, so for the three people who will read this, I will update once a week :)
> 
> Author's Note 3: I'm a soundtrack kind of writer, so I'll add a few songs that you may enjoy... In the case of the prologue, I suggest London Grammar's 'If You Wait' (where I stole the title from).


	2. And Close to None

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _You look like you wanted home_  
>  Far from god, and close to none  
>   
>   
> 

_1968_ _\- Berkeley, California_

 

> _Hello My Darlings -_
> 
> _I am so sorry to have missed your trip to my particular kind of heaven here in California but unfortunately this opportunity to travel to parts unknown arose suddenly, and as Susan can attest, I have always been party gypsy. I hope that in the two years Claire has been here I’ve been able to impart enough local knowledge to have her play a successful tour guide. A few friends may pop round to check in on you.  Susan may recognise Iris and Hailey from Jean’s letters._
> 
> _Please treat my home as yours. I’ve stocked a decent supply of proper tea & bourbon (the least I can do).  Jean has vouched to the comfort of the bed in the guest room and the water heater for bathing is one of the largest I could find (bless this country’s indulgences!)._
> 
> _J’adore -_  
> 
> _M._

 

“Well that’s a shame,” Timothy exclaimed, reading the letter out loud before handing it off to his wife.   
“Oh, it’s to be expected, Millie isn’t happy unless she’s adding a stamp to her passport.” Susan sighs, folding the letter and putting it down.  “Claire’s put the kettle on for tea if you wanted to take a bath?”  
“Hmm - not a bad idea, sure you wouldn’t rather go first?”  
“No, I’d rather bathe before bed.I’m rather tired as it is - the warm water would put me straight to sleep.”  
“Alright then - won’t be long!” Timothy kisses his wife’s cheek before making his way to the bathroom, loosening his tie as he goes.  
“Sure I can’t help you, love?” Susan asks her daughter, listening to the movement from the kitchen.  
“I’m fine!You unpack and get comfortable mum.” Claire calls back.

Susan takes a breath, telling herself that her frustration is simply jet lag and exhaustion instead of anything else.She takes in the room, trying to overlay the pictures Claire has shared from the last two years with the actual room, which was larger and brighter in real life.Two low jade green sofas and a coffee table, a credenza with the radio, record player, and television stood to one side, flanked on either side by low shelves of books and records.She lifts the lid of the record player and reads the label, _Aretha Franklin - One Step Ahead_ , though they’d heard of her, this one hadn’t made its way over to them yet.Susan runs her fingers over the label, the grooves, the A-side well worn.Some things haven’t changed then, she thinks to herself smiling, thinking of the songs Millie would listen to repeatedly on when they lived together - if she never heard another Glenn Miller song, it would still be too soon.She absentmindedly presses play, the gentle rhythm flooding the room before Aretha’s voice began.She can’t help but smile at the sentiment of the song.She should be angry, she should be exasperated, she should be so many things, but she can’t help it - this soft spot she has for Millie.Same as she supposes Millie can’t help hers.“Oh my goodness-” Claire laughs, startling Susan, “I thought one benefit of Aunt Millie’s absence is that I won’t have to hear that song again!”   
“She used to do that all the time.Glad to hear some things don’t change.”Susan smiles at her daughter and takes a sip of the offered cup of tea. “Thank you, I suddenly feel much more human.”  
“It’s a long trip, but I’m so glad you’re both here.”  
“We are too darling, now,” Susan sits on one of the couch, and smiles as she watches her daughter sprawl out across the other, “How do you like it here?”  
“Oh, it’s so different mum.The kids, the teachers, everyone.It’s not bad, it’s just…so much more work to try and understand the mechanics of people. You’re smiling…”  
“I’m afraid you’ve gotten that from me.”  
“Oh, don’t be.It could be worse, Aunt Millie has basically become an American translator for me, and Simon does his best.”  
“And this Simon- ”  
“No.”  
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”  
“The answer will likely be no.He’s very nice, but…much like everything, very different.”  
“Alright.” Susan sips her tea.“And how do you like living with your Aunt Millie?”  
“She’s fantastic! She’s a lot of fun, and so helpful.She’s one of the most popular professors you know?”  
“That doesn’t surprise me.”  
“And she’s helped me meet so many people.And it doesn’t feel like - well I’m living with a friend of yours.I mean, I don’t feel like she’s running to the post to tell you everything I’m doing-”  
“And what are you doing that would require her to tell me?”   
“Oh nothing, it’s just… I was worried she’d be more like Auntie Jean.”  
“Far from it.”  
“I know! It’s just…” She searches for the right words, “I feel like I don’t know her yet?I’m up here all the time, or she and I will meet on campus or go to the museum, or coffee, so she feels like a friend, but also…”  
“Distant?”Susan watches her daughter nod, “That’s just her way - hot and cold, she doesn’t mean anything by it.”  
“It’s not hot and cold necessarily, more - she reminds me of you in a way.”  
“Me? Well, no one’s ever said that before!”Susan scoffs.  
“You’re both - an arms length away.Never sharing anything that matters.”  
“Oh.” A pause.“I’m sorry you feel that way.”She knows she can’t hide the look of being wounded, but she wasn’t expecting this, made all the more cutting by its casual nature.   
“Feel what way?”Timothy asks fresh from the bath.“And I have to admit, Millie was rather right about that water heater.”  
“Oh - nothing dear.” Susan fumbles, “Tea?”  
“Yes, would love one actually.You and your mum catching up, Button?”He asks, settling down beside his daughter as his wife rises, trapping her from following her mother.“Well what’s this?”He asks, looking at the wall opposite the credenza, covered in a large map, surrounded by pictures.Susan returns and hands a cup of tea to her husband before placing a hand on her daughter’s shoulder and giving it a slight squeeze before taking in the map and smiling.She spots the black pins in London, Bombay, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Glasgow, Paris.All with strings extending out to photos of Jean, Lucy’s family, the Gray family’s last photo, a handsome man in New York, a couple in Los Angeles.Green pins dotted places Susan recognised from Millie’s travels back when she sent her postcards after Bletchley, with strings leading postcards.She fingered the red pins, marked for places she assumed Milly hadn’t traveled yet - Hong Kong, Shanghai, Japan, Polynesia, Australia, a few places in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa.“So many places left on her list.”She murmurs to herself.  
“Still,” Timothy comments, sipping his tea, “Rather a curious way of marking it, don’t you think?”  
“She says it’s so she can remember why she’s working…to afford these adventures she’d like to go on.We’re up there mum,”Claire points out, getting up and wrapping an arm around her mother’s waist, a silent apology.  
“I see.”  
“And Auntie Jean, and this is her cousin Edward who may stop by.He’s so dashing!”

 

* * *

 

When Millie returns home a month later, she’s relieved to find the entire house empty.She kicks off her shoes, pours herself a bourbon (straight, no energy to make a proper drink), and lights a cigarette.It’s not that she’s tired of traveling, it’s just… good to be home. Even if home was thousands of miles away from where she started from. She stares at her luggage, almost offensive in what it demands of her. Unpacking, laundry, sorting this or that, when all she really wants is to sink into the bath. Forget it - she’s an adult and she is making the very adult decision to ignore her adult responsibilities and to take a bath and drink her drink and smoke her cigarette at 11.23 am on this Tuesday morning.  
  
Set in her decision, she steps away from the pile of luggage towards the radio which she switches on and begins to unbutton her blouse and run the bath water. She makes her way down the short hall as the tub fills, purposely not looking at the guest room (and all the other adult duties that would entail) and makes her way to her room, sighing when she sees the vase of roses on her bedside table, a note placed beside it. She shucks her clothes and brushes a hand over the roses - still fragrant and fresh - before she grabs her robe and leaves for her bath.  
  
She doesn’t think about the letter as she eases herself into the hot water, or as she sipsher drink.She doesn’t think about the letter writer as she hums to the radio, or finishes her cigarette.She certainly doesn’t think about it as she rolls her shoulders trying to loosen the tightness in them.She does everything she can to think about everything and anything else until the next morning when she wakes up at four in the morning, anxious and on edge from jet lag and restless sleep.Her arm stretches to just far enough to be able to tug the curtains back and let in the pre-dawn lightness and she curses as she strains something in her neck.It’s like this, bare faced, hair askew, aching in places she’s never ached before that she chooses to read Susan’s letter.

Millie slides her finger along the edge of the envelope and breaks the adhesive seal.The letter is good quality stationary with Susan and Timothy’s names gilded across the top, very up-market.She grimaces at the fact that her Susan has been reduced to such…inane and mundane ways of life.Imagine wasting valuable suitcase space for this. Imagine this is your life.Millie cannot, she’d left that way of life years ago with very little regret but she also concedes that a very small part of her bitterness is at the fact that it’s Susan who never once expressed any interest in this way of life.But then again, she thought, Susan very rarely chose to disclose anything, preferring to allow others to project their own desires upon her and simply reflecting them back onto others.If she was in a more generous mood, she’d have likened Susan to the moon, but she’s rather stroppy now and simply sees it as a weakness, a failing of character.

The letter is bland, full of polite thanks at taking care of Claire so well, and how much they enjoyed California.Millie’s eyes roll so far back that she’s worried they may stay there permanently.She reaches the second page - and there, in Susan’s familiar script:

 

> _…how happy Timothy and I were to find you unexpectedly settled into a perfectly ordinary life._
> 
> _All our best -_
> 
> _S. Gray_

It was at this exact moment that Millie realised that the pang in her chest when she thought of Susan was no longer love, but rather, anguish.She had learned to live without Susan, but she still missed her sometimes.And though she knew Susan no longer loved her, possibly never loved her, Millie hated herself for still wanted the other woman.Her heart and her flesh were weak and she hated herself for that.But she exhausted and she could no longer carry the weight of the other woman’s rejection, no matter how familiar.She had fled half-way around the world, and some how it still wasn’t enough. 

It would never be enough. 

She would never be enough. 

And that was the heart of the matter, wasn’t it?That’s where they were with their friendship.Subtle digs at one another over some imagined transgressions.What even tied them together other than a few shared years?The secrecy around everything: their work; the elusive nature of their relationship; and the death of Crowley all seemed to conspire with the distance (both physical and metaphorical) between them until it all seemed heavy with meaning and mixed messages.But strip everything down the the facts, and the facts were they were certainly no longer friends.Maybe they had never been friends, not really.Necessity forced their intimacy, but freedom revealed its artifice. 

It was a relief then, to be able to accept this.To be able to give herself permission to move forward, move on.If this was the truth that had chased her around the world, then perhaps it wasn’t so scary?She smiled a weak, watery sort of smile to herself and set her shoulders back. 

It was good to have your heart broken every once in a while, she rationalised to herself.It built character, added mystery.Stiff upper lip and all that.She had survived worse, and she would survive Susan Gray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Suggested songs for this chapter include: Future Island’s 'Close to None’, Aretha Franklin’s ‘One Step Ahead’.


	3. I’ll Be There, Always

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sky and sea stretch out, seemingly endless, merging into one. Everything is the steely grey and edged in white fog that’s yet to burn off completely. “Now this reminds me of home.” Millie admits softly, “Welcome to California.”

_1970 - San Francisco, California_

Millie Harcourt hates airports - at least she does when she’s not the one going to and fro, and what she wouldn’t give to be the one leaving again, but she can’t use that trick twice. 

She stops her pacing to stare out the window, watching the planes come and go. She takes a deep breath to calm her nerves and smooths away some imaginary wrinkles in her dress - if only she could do the same to her face. While she doesn’t feel much older than the last time they saw each other, she knows that’s not the case - what was it, 13, 14 years had passed? She had told Kit that she’d be fine, but waiting at the airport for Susan to arrive, she realised that she was lying to herself. She’d love to call Kit for some words of encouragement, but didn’t want to hear “I told you so” from her friend, no matter how well-deserved. 

A soft voice calling her name pulled her out of her thoughts and in the reflection in the glass she saw a familiar looking at her. “Susan!” She turns around and finds the other woman burying herself in her arms. They embrace tightly for a moment, all past slights forgiven and forgotten (at least temporarily). “I’m so sorry about Timothy, Susan.” Millie murmurs, conveying her honest sorrow at her friend’s loss. Though she didn’t know him well, Timothy was, by all accounts, a good man, who truly loved his wife and his children and had done his best by them and she was sorry her friend was in mourning for her husband, just as she had been sorry Claire, who had mourned her father. “Thank you.” Susan pulls back and smiles briefly, arms still holding on to Millie’s forearms. “And thank you for being there for Claire, it meant so much to know she had someone here with her. Not someone,” She corrects herself, “It meant so much to know she had you here with her.” Millie smiles, unsure of what else to say. “Shall we get your bags and get going? Claire had wanted to come, but she had to get her graduation gown fitted and hemmed and goodness knows, I’m not much help when it comes to domestics that.” And so, arms linked, they begin to walk away.

* * *

Susan takes a deep breath of the air rushing past her and cannot help but smile. After that long flight, the cool air scented with eucalyptus and sea salt is revitalising, and the speed at which Millie is zipping along the highway doesn’t hurt either. With a borrowed a scarf to protect her hair and her sunglasses, this was exactly what she had imagined California to be like when she had first thought of visiting it all those years ago. 

Millie, meanwhile, sneaks glances at the other woman when she can. She had built up the other woman to mythic proportions, but once she held her in her arms, she was brought back to reality. Susan was no god-like creature but a woman, no different than the countless other women that had entered and left Millie’s life, all whom served a variety of purposes. She chooses to ignore her heart pounding away in her ears. “You keep looking at me Millie,” Susan says, eyes not moving from the beautiful scenery, so different from the sights of Bombay which had become second nature, almost dull, to her. She never thought that would be possible, but there it was. “Oh,” Millie bluffs, “Just that Claire will be ecstatic to see you.”  
“And you? Are you happy to see me?”  
“Yes.” Millie admits, glad to be able to blame the blush on her cheeks on the wind. “I am.” Susan doesn’t reveal if she’s happy to see Millie, or to be here. She watches the natural beauty give way to small houses painted in pretty pale colours and finally speaks. “The weather reminds me of home, is that why you like it here?”  
“Ha - that’s on this side of the bay. Every neighbourhood has it’s own weather here, I’m surprised that the radio and television stations don’t have correspondents stationed every 10 blocks.”  
“Is it really as bad as all that?”  
“Would I lie to you?” Millie asks, tossing a smile over her shoulder, “Now, across the bridge where I live, it’s positively dismal - sunshine and blue skies, day in and day out.”  
“Yes, well it’s a hardship that must be endured, I suppose?”  
“Needs must and all that.” She teases, “It’s almost enough to forget we could’ve ever been that cold and damp.” She doesn’t have to specify her reference, there were certain events in every life that we can never shake. “But San Francisco? She is, as Sterling wrote, ‘my cool, grey city of love’.”  
“Well, she suits you.” Susan complements, leaning her head back to take in the grandeur of the sky. 

A comfortable silence falls over the women as Millie leads the car through silent residential streets with low houses, their paint battered by the salty winds until even the houses are left behind and they reach a lone stretch of motorway. She eventually pulls the car over on the shoulder and toes off her her shoes before stepping out of the car. “Come on!” She instructs, reaching into the trunk of the car and pulling out a small thermos. “Here? Now?” Susan asks, stepping out. “It’ll be quick, I promise.” Millie smiles, “Though I suggest you take off your shoes.” Susan glances at the other woman, face open and honest and completely inscrutable other than that, and slips off her shoes. “Let’s go!” Millie hooks an arm through Susan’s and arm in arm they trek up the sandy dune until they reach the top and are greeted by breathtaking view. Sky and sea stretch out, seemingly endless, merging into one. Everything is the steely grey and edged in white fog that’s yet to burn off completely. “Now this reminds me of home.” Millie admits softly, “Welcome to California.”  
“Oh Millie, it’s beautiful.” She closes her eye and takes a deep breath of the cool air and almost cries, overcome with exhaustion and too many thoughts, too many emotions, all rolling around within her, chief amongst them, how much she misses…the way things were. Life always seems so endlessly plodding when you’re in the thick of it, but it’s never really that long, blink and it’ll change. It can break irreparably. It can be better or worse than it was, but it will certainly be different. She wiggles her toes in the sand so cold it hurts and soon a smile begins to spread across her face and she opens her eyes to Millie beside her, “It should still be warm.” Millie comments, as she offers Susan a plastic thermos lid of tea. “Now I know you had said you wanted to step into the Pacific many, many lifetimes ago, and I said I would make it happen, but I don’t recommend it. It’s rather frigid on the best days.”  
“But we’re in California in the summer.”  
“It’s basically in Aberdeen, but with convertibles.” Millie counters, before topping off the tea and taking a sip of it. “But I did want to make sure you saw it. That I can say I fulfilled my promise of showing Susan Gray a little part of the world far, far from from where we’d been.” Susan doesn’t say anything as she slips her hand into Millie’s and squeezes it softly.

They go home shortly after and the drive is nearly wordless, as they pull into the driveway. “It’s not much, but it’s home,” Millie nervously explains as she takes Susan’s case out of the back of the car. “I mean, you know, you were both here, but still. Anyways, I think Claire should be back soon. How about a pot of strong tea until then?” Millie unlocks the door and kicks off her shoes before taking the case into the guest room and then returning to the kitchen to put the kettle on. “Make yourself at home!” Millie calls out as she scoops up a pile of crumbs missed from breakfast off the counter. “Did you want a bath or anything?” Millie rolls her eyes at herself and her eagerness. She had sworn she wouldn’t chase after Susan like a dog, and yet here she was.  
“Travel shouldn’t wear me down as much as it does.” She confesses from the doorway to the kitchen, “Maybe I’ll lie down a bit.”  
“You know where your room is.” The kettle’s whistle goes off, interrupting them, “Want me to bring you a cup?” Millie hates herself for even asking.  
“No thank you.” Susan looks at her, and Millie had forgotten how inscrutable the other woman could be. She was across the room, no more than a few steps, and yet she may as well have been in Hong Kong or Tehran for how far she felt.  
“Right then.” Well, I’ve some work at school, so I’ll slip out in a bit. Claire will be home any minute though.”  
“Thank you. I’ll be better company after a lie down.”  
“You’re delightful company as you are.” Millie smiles as she walks past her towards the front door. “You know where everything is, so treat this as your home.” And with that, she leaves the house and Susan in silence.

Susan releases a breath she didn’t even know she was holding. Perhaps she would need that cup of tea after all?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN1: Songs for this chapter include Florence & The Machine's ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’; Future Islands' 'An Inch of Dust'
> 
> AN2: If you have a moment, I suggest googling Ed Rucha’s painting ‘A Particular Kind of Heaven’. It was referenced in passing in an earlier chapter and is a perfect embodiment of looking out upon the Pacific ocean.


	4. It Takes A While to Settle Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ever since Timothy had passed, her memories had been…unreliable. … She began to examine the pattern of her life and discovered the data had been corrupted beyond repair. The decay was so prevalent that she couldn’t go back to clean code. … Could she trust the memories of black out curtains and cold winds? Of sharing a bed and thin blankets to fight the cold. Of wool covered whispers between them?

 

* * *

 

It’s the third night where she’s been tossing and turning.She’s taken hot baths, read, sipped on warm milk and bourbon (separate and together), and gone for walks and none of it has helped.    
  
She misses Timothy and this stupid American bed is massive without him - amplifying his absence.  She should’ve been used to sleeping without him by now, but it’s been 25 years with him, and only eight months since he’d gone.  This wasn’t a hair cut she was getting used to, it was the death of her husband and he should be here!  He should be with her!  She knows she’s being irrational, but doesn’t care.    
  
If she listens very hard, she can make out voices from the kitchen but not the words - giving her a peculiar feeling of being a child again - listening to her parents murmured conversations when she was supposed to be asleep.  It reminds her of being left out and left to her own devices.  She gives up the fight for sleep and rises, slipping her robe over her nightgown and creeping to the door where she opens it slowly.  The door to the kitchen is mostly closed, but a small sliver of light stretches along the floor and she’s stuck between going and staying.  A shadow breaks the light for a moment and it’s enough to push her to walk out, quiet, not wanting to interrupt Millie and Claire.  It’s been so odd these past few days, to watch two people who should have no reason to have ever met, engage with each other so naturally.  Claire had made an off-hand comment that people often asked if the older woman was her mother and Susan couldn’t fathom why that was almost painful to hear.  As she crept closer she could start to identify words and speakers, her daughter asking, “Should I tell mum about Simon before they meet?”  
“What about?Oh.”  
“Yes, oh.”The young woman teases. 

If Susan shifts just so, she can watch them from the dark, her friend still dressed for the day, stirring something in a cup, her daughter in her night clothes.    
  
“Well, it’s not yours to tell, is it dearest?”  Millie asks, before taking a sip.  
“No - and would she even understand?”

Understand what?Was Simon her daughter’s boyfriend? Lover (No! She was too young, too - no)?    


“Your generation didn’t really invent it, you know.”Millie teases with an arched brow and a smirk.    
“She’s not…like you.”  
“Oh?”

 Even from the next room over, Susan can see the smirk turn to into a large grin.She can hear the flick of the lighter, the soft sound of the cigarette catching light.    
  
“You know what I mean Aunt Millie!”  
“I dare say, your mother would’ve surprised you back in the day.” 

Millie rises and Susan can no longer see her.She hears water running, the stove igniting.If she’s going to go in, now’s the time.She sets a smile on her face and does her best ‘just woke up face’, “Now what’s all this chattering about going on?”She exclaims, ruffling her daughter’s hair much to her annoyance.“This ever elusive Simon?”The minute the words leave her lips, she knows that that was the wrong thing to say.    
“I had a feeling you’d join us,” Millie says, brow arched, letting her know she’d been spotted earlier.“Jet lag?”  
“The worst.Why are you both up?”  
“Millie just came home.”Her daughter stretches the last word, smirking as the other woman shoot daggers at her.“And I was just getting ready for bed.”  
“So late?” The question is aimed at both, though she only looks at her daughter.  
“Can’t sleep.”The young woman confesses.“It’s be a big day tomorrow.”  
“It is.”Susan smiles, reaching out across the table and taking her daughter’s hand in hers.“He really wanted to have been here if he could’ve.”  
“I know mum.”She squeezes her mother’s hand and yawns.“I should go to bed and at least try to get some sleep.Promise me you’ll both do the same?”  
“Yes ma’am.” Millie mock salutes as she takes the whistling kettle off the flame.    
“Yes dear.”Susan nods, smiling as she watches her daughter exit the kitchen from the back door, leaving her alone with Millie, who sets a cup of tea down in front of her.“Thank you Millicent.”  
“Not even close.”   
“I’ll get it one day,” Susan announces, referencing this new game to guess Millie’s proper name before taking a sip.After all these years and Millie still remembers how to make her a proper cup.    
“How did you even get this idea into your head?”  
“Jean had mentioned it once, and it occurred to me, I never even thought about how I never knew what Millie was a derivative of.In this exact instance I mean.Are you going to sit or just continue to prop up the wall?”  
“It’s getting late.”Millie shrugs her shoulders, uncertain of where to go.  
“You seem seem to be very awake, as am I.”Susan stares at her, and though her face is completely neutral, Millie can sense the challenge behind it.“Is there anything I need to worry about?” Susan asks, shifting tactics, “In terms of this Simon?She’s mentioned him here and there, but I’ve never picked up anything more than that he’s a friend.”  
“He’s a good hearted young man and there’s nothing you need to worry about.”Millie vouches.“You’ll meet him tomorrow.”  
“Alright then.”Susan takes another sip. 

  
She feels like she’s only getting half the story, that there’s half a world she isn’t seeing and that she’s half a step behind everyone to catch up.This isn’t an uncommon feeling out in the ‘real’ world, but with her family, with those who care about her, she’s always been able to feel she was at least in step with them.These last few days however she can’t help but feel angry, resentful even, of the ease in which those around her move within their shared worlds and how she cannot keep up.Part of the pain was that Millie was the first person to anchor her, to pull her along and get her in sync with the rest of the world.Millie was the one who, if she couldn’t get Susan to keep up, would slow down and stay with her until she was able to make sense of everything around them, often staying up with her on nights just like this… The connection having been made, she cannot help but shoot the other woman a smile.“What’s that for?” Millie asks, eyes narrowing in suspicion.   
“Have you ever told her?” Susan asks, changing the topic.  
“About?”

 A pause - there was so much that could allude to that neither was sure the other realised the weight behind it.

“Bletchley.”The word, for once, is no longer whispered furtively - it seems so far removed from this small kitchen in California.It may as well been Gallifrey or Eurasia - a made up land for a forgotten story.    
“That?No.What could I say?How delightfully rotten we once were, and how much I liked you for that?” Susan laughs at Millie’s teasing of her past self as she watches Millie pushing herself upright from where she leaned along the wall, taking the empty tea cup from the table. 

Susan watches Millie as she washes her cup and she’s struck that the Millie in her mind towers over her, but in stocking feet, she’s very nearly her height.She can remember moments, but not specific memories.She remembers being curled into the other woman’s side feeling incredibly safe, she remembers being warm and overwhelmed despite the cold and the dark outside, that nothing could ever touch her as long as she stayed there.She wonders briefly why she ever left, even if she knew the answer.Strange how a wisp no more than a few inches taller than herself was once able to wrap around her like a blanket or like the steam from a particularly hot bath and keep everything soft and safe and just out of reach.What she wouldn’t give to be able to go back to that, but the world doesn’t go backwards, only forwards.

“Think you can manage some sleep now?” Millie asks softly.  
“You go to bed, I think I’m still adjusting.” Susan smiles softly to the other woman who nods wordlessly and turns away and disappears into the dark. 

Ever since Timothy had passed, her memories had been…unreliable.She had found an old sweater of hers that she recalled being navy - only to discover it was forrest green.Pictures revealed others she had forgotten as being present at key events. Stories she attributed to Claire were about Sam instead. Letters between herself and her husband reminded her of things she had forgotten.She began to examine the pattern of her life and discovered the data had been corrupted beyond repair.The decay was so prevalent that she couldn’t go back to clean code.She would be revisited in the night by things buried so long ago that she didn’t know if they were real memories or fake ones willed into existence.Could she trust the memories of black out curtains and cold winds?Of sharing a bed and thin blankets to fight the cold.Of wool covered whispers between them?Of hands on hair, on skin.Who leaned into their first kiss?Who confessed their love first?Were those words even spoken?She is having trouble parsing out fact from fiction - and it worries her.Is it her mind that’s softening with age, or is she simply too exhausted to bury everything, having just buried a husband?  

“You’re looking awfully serious for this hour.”Millie teases from the doorway, pulling her from her thoughts and surprising her with utterly different experience.Her red lips, her dark brows have been wiped off, replaced with a face shining with night cream, a comfortable robe wrapped tightly around her figure.Susan is suddenly struck by how much older - but no less striking - Millie looks.She supposes she must look just as old to the other woman.“I thought you were going to sleep?”Susan asks.  
“I could hear your thinking from there - it was keeping me up.”    
“I’m sorry - I’ll try to think quieter.”  
“Please do.Come on,” She cocks her head to the side, “If you’re going to keep me up all night, let’s at least be comfortable about it.” 

Susan follows her to the living room and settles on the couch as Millie hands her a throw blanket and a small glass of something brown to sip before she flips on the radio and sets herself down on the floor, leaning back against the television.“Don’t you want to sit somewhere comfortable?”  
“I’m comfortable.” Millie smiles, “Drink up, it’s medicinal.”  
“Is it now?”  
“It is, and a good sight better than what we once drank.”

They sit there in near silence.

“Did you ever think we’d…be here?” Susan finally asks.  
“Here in California? Here sharing a drink? Here sharing a drink in California?”   
“Here.”Susan looks at her, truly and honestly, the meaning of the word clarified.  
“No.” Millie confesses abruptly, breaking eye contact.“I thought when we said goodbye, that would be it.”  
“I did write more.”Susan says, trying to defend herself from an unspoken accusation.“And then you and Jean went abroad and you just… Stopped responding.”  
“I did not.” Millie says, taking another sip, to hide from the cutting glare Susan tosses her way.She knows exactly what Susan meant.Her correspondences had changed, become distant and factual until they simply exchanged nothing more than holiday and birthday greetings.Until Claire.“What happened?”  
“Nothing happened Susan.Life, I suppose.Just life.”  
“Just life?”

Millie shoots her a look of her own. 

“Life is different here.”  
“Life is different in India too, doesn’t mean I can’t pick up a pen.”  
“Like the great ink shortage after the war?” Millie lobbies back.  
“That was different -” Susan protests.  
“So is this.This place is so new, so beautifully young and stupidly optimistic and so broken.But change is…possible here.” She all but chokes out the words, pausing as she picks them very carefully and very deliberately, “The way people live.The way I live.”  
“And just how do you live, Millie? That was so different that you couldn’t do it from London.”  
“Did you really want me to pretend I was happy conjugating latin with some spoiled brats who’ll lord over us, literally, because of their good fortune to be born into the right family?”  
“I just … Want to know where you went.Jean, Lucy - their lives changed but they were still there.You…just…disappeared.”Her voice drops, “You wrote, but you weren’t there.I tried to keep it up but what was the point?And then I get these letters from Jean, from Claire, about how wonderful you are, how much fun you are, what amazing adventure you’ve just returned from, and all I get from you is happy bloody birthday!”  
“It doesn’t feel good, does it?” Millie asks, draining her glass before setting it on the floor beside her.  
“No, it doesn’t.” Susan admits, “I’m sorry.”The other half of that sentence remains unspoken.

They flit along the edges of their shared past, knowing that if words are said, words they hadn’t said in 15 years, let alone ever, they can never be taken back. 

“You can only run so far from certain things,” Millie begins, “From certain people until something stops you.”    
“So what stopped you?”  
“The Pacific.” Millie beams up at the woman perched on the couch, and Susan could feel her heart skip a beat taking in this sight of an unguarded Millie. “It took the air straight from my lungs.It was the first time, in such a very long time, that I could breathe without this weight pressing down here,” She places a hand lightly on her own heart, “That I could think clearly, that I could be something more than this lost person, wandering the world to find themselves.” She blinks, and suddenly the moment passes, the walls are reassembled and Susan finds herself far more distant from Millie that the couple of feet that lay between them.“I’m very happy for you, you know I’ve always only wanted the very best for you.” From the slight flinch, Susan suspects that was entirely the wrong thing to say, but it’s not very often she knows the right thing to say, not in conversations like this, that matter.“Now, tell me about who you spend time with? What do you do? Tell me about this life.”  
“Why don’t you tell me about Bombay?”  
“There’s nothing to tell. It was Timothy and the children.”  
“There must’ve been more - it’s India! Tell me anything, tell me something.” There is something in Millie’s tone - half-warning, half-pleading - that pangs her.  
“Well,” Susan hesitantly begins, “We live in a house that…makes me blush, compared to home.”    
“Fabulous - look at you, ostentatiously wealthy!” Millie teases.  
“Hardly! It’s just ‘the way things are done’” Susan laughs, mimicking Timothy’s constant refrain.“So I raised the children, and you became a professor?”  
“With a detour here and there.”  
“Well what happened to re-route you?”  
“Jean.” Millie laughed, “Despite my best efforts to remain a wretch, she gave me a talking to - I don’t think my own governess ever even spoke to me like that.”  
“What words could she have said to make you turn your life around?Maybe I can use a turnaround myself?”  
“Ah, that is a secret between me and Ms. McBrian.” Millie grins at Susan before dodging a pillow lobbed in her direction.

They continue like this until Susan’s voice gets softer and slower and eventually all together stops when she finally nods off.Millie is thankful, if only because she didn’t know how much longer she’d have been able to stay awake.With a quiet groan, she pushes herself up off the carpeting and admits perhaps the floor wasn’t the smartest option - she was no longer a child, or even a young woman.She gathers their glasses and deposits them in the sink before she returns to the living room and switches the lights completely off.She makes her way in the dark to Susan’s side where she eases her down completely on the couch and tucks the blanket around her.“Good night dearest.”She whispers as she brushes her hand through the sleeping woman’s hair, her heart aching with love. 

From the bedroom, Millie can still here the music from the radio, playing softly. 

_“If I didn’t care, would it be the same?”_ Frank Sinatra asks in the dark. _“Would my every prayer begin and end with just your name?”_

She sends herself to sleep trying not to listen to the words.Trying to piece together her heart which is beginning to tear despite her very best efforts to hold it all together.Trying not to cry at the thought of being in the same place as she was when she was 25, stuck in the dark, unable to speak, unable to act, unable to do anything more than be desperately in love with Susan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN1: Songs for this chapter include: ‘If I Didn’t Care’ by (I'm partial to the Frank Sinatra one, but take your pic); ‘Set Out Running’ by Neko Case; ‘Anthems for a 17-Year Old Girl’ by Broken Social Scene; ‘Balance’ By Future Islands; and 'Terrible Love' by The National.
> 
> AN2: If you're reading this, feel free to drop a line and let me know that you're there :)


	5. Back to When...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Susan was struck how even in the sunshine she seemed brighter, more incandescent, more alive than everyone around her…as if no time had passed between the moment she first saw her racing about the hut in Bletchley to now. She turns away before Millie catches her staring.

* * *

To be honest, Susan was rather relieved (if concerned) that the large graduation services had been suspended.Millie and Claire had tried to give her a summary of it earlier, but despite having a grasp on the history of British Colonialism, the Indian Independence movement and a handful of other international conflicts past and present, she found herself unable or uninterested to make heads or tails of it and was relieved to have been rescued from a lecture of local history by a call from Sam to congratulate his sister on her graduation.So here she sat, in a cramped and stuffy lecture hall watching her daughter walk across that stage to do something that seemed practically unthinkable to the women of her own generation.The lone female engineering professor seated in the sea of older men was a living, breathing example of this fact.Susan had felt the loss of Timothy deeper than she thought she would, often finding herself reaching out to hold his hand only to realise over and over again that he wasn’t beside her. Instead, she sat with the parents of a few of Claire’s friends, one of whom, Mrs. Nakamura, gently took her hand and squeezed it when it was time for Claire’s name to be called.   
  
They met in the quad afterwards, Millie making her way to them, chatting with a handful of her students and their parents.  Susan was struck how even in the sunshine she seemed brighter, more incandescent, more alive than everyone around her.  How even her academic robe left over from her students ceremonies, managed to make her look striking, as if no time had passed between the moment she first saw her racing about the hut in Bletchley to now.  She turns away before Millie catches her staring.    
  
Millie finally sheds her admirers and students and offers up a large bouquet of flowers to Claire before wrapping her arms around her, “Congratulations dearest!  On behalf of your Aunt Jean, we are so incredibly proud of you!  And one for you, mother of the graduate!  Look at you!”  Millie hugs her tightly as well before linking arms - a Gray on each side - and leads them to the faculty parking lot.  “Now, what do you say to lunch at Chez Panisse to celebrate?! Simon’s joining us there - where we can thank him for getting us in and distract him from his latest heartbreak!”

 

* * *

 

“Millie,” Susan asks, very cautious of how she’s about to proceed.“Was it a man?Who broke Simon’s heart?”  
  
Millie pauses as she reaches into the fridge, thankful for the cover the door provides.  “Yes, actually.”  She takes a breath of the cold air to calm her nerves, to help her focus as if this isn’t suddenly too painful, too real, too close to the heart.  “Water?”  She offers the jug from the fridge and closes the door.  
  
“No.Is that what Claire…didn’t know how to tell me the other night?”  
“Yes.” Millie confirms before she pours herself a glass of water and forces herself to drink it.She needs something to do with her hands, with the jug, now that she pulled it out.“Why would she think I wouldn’t understand?” Susan asks.  
“Come on Susan, would you have expected your mother to have understood if you had come home arm in arm with m-”  
“Is Claire?” She doesn’t need to finish that sentence, the implication heavy.  
“Is Claire what? Oh no. Not in the least.”Millie assures her, “At least she hasn’t said anything to me. She simply has an infinite capacity for understanding. For empathy.You and Timothy did a marvellous job raising that young woman.”  
“So she’s not like…”  
“Like Simon? Or myself? No Susan, you can rest easy.”The temperature in the room drops several degrees with each word until it’s as frigid as the water in the bay.Millie holds Susan’s eyes, face set in stone.If Susan wants to flinch or turn away, let her, but Millie won’t be the one to give her the out, make it easy for her.  
  
“Knock knock! Hello!” Claire comes in from the side door, breaking the mood, “Oh - you’re both here, fantastic.  What do you think? It’s not too scandalous, is it?” She asks, spinning to model her new crocheted mini-dress.   
“What are you talking about? Of course it is, that’s the point!” Millie laughs, “You look divine!”  
“Thanks Aunt Millie!Mum?”  
“I mean, it certainly is short… Can you even sit in it?”  
“She won’t be sitting in it!”  
“Millie!” Susan gasps.  
“I meant she’ll be dancing - it’s a party.” She covers, winking at Claire.“Besides, to the pure, all things are pure.”  
“Millie’s right - you look lovely.” She kisses her daughter on the cheek before straightening a wisp of hair.    
“I don’t even know if I should go…” Claire says, hopping up on the counter before Millie wordlessly hands her a glass of water.“We didn’t even really have a proper graduation…”  
“All the more reason for you to go to this graduation party!” Her mother chimes in.  
“But I’m tired…”  
“And you’ll perk right up when you get there. Besides, you can sleep in tomorrow, and then do nothing but lay about when everyone comes over… Now, stiff upper lip and think of England dear!”Millie teases, “You won’t always have this, you know, this kind of happiness.Sadness has a very unfortunate habit of making itself known.”  
“Well thank you for that very cheerful reminder Aunt Millie.” Claire laughs as she hops down off the counter.“Mum, sure you’re alright with this?”  
“Yes, and I hate to admit it, but Millie’s right.During the war, what I wouldn’t have given for more good memories like this.So go, have fun!Be careful!”  
“But have fun!” Millie winks before Claire leaves them alone and the frost returns once more.  
  
“Millie - I just -”  
“I have to get ready.” Millie interrupts.   
“Ready?” Susan asks, confused at the switch.  
“I had made plans.Simon’s gone with Claire, so you’ll have the house to yourself.Will you be alright?”  
“On my own? Yes, of course.”  
“Alright then.” Millie nods before turning on her heel and making her way to her room where she turns on the radio and begins to flip through her outfits to find just the right one.Susan stands in the doorway, suddenly feeling very old.This was a scene they had done so many times before, so many years ago, but it doesn’t feel the same anymore.It feels important and she can’t solve the question of why.Another corrupted code.She sits on the edge of Millie’s bed and folds her hands in her lap as she tries to ignore the intimacy of this scene between them.“Were we ever as young as Claire?” She asks, smiling softly at Millie, holding up a blouse to her frame.    
“I’m sure we were, before the war.”  
“The war.”  
“You remember the war don’t you?” Millie asks, holding up another blouse, “Awful tea, cold floors, cramped quarters, late nights?”  
“Hmmm - now that you mention it, yes, seems familiar.Another life.”  
“Indeed.”    
“Go with the red one.” Susan suggests.  
“It’s not red, it’s maroon, merlot perhaps, but not red.”  
  
Millie doesn’t even blink before she unzips her dress and sheds it like a skin before she sets herself down in front of her vanity and begins to take out the pins in her hair, letting the length tumble down her back.  She begins to comb it out, eyeing Susan’s reflection in the mirror before her.  The song changes and with it the mood.  
  
“This is a nice song.”   
“Nina Simone.I’ve a few of her records if you want to listen to them tonight.” Millie offers before applying her lipstick, her mascara.  
“Of course you do.”  
“What’s that mean?”  
“Nothing, you just always knew the latest song, or gossip, or style.What’s that?” Susan asks, changing the topic to the cane leaning in the corner of the room. “Have you gotten old on me?”  
“Oh,” Millie follows the look to the object in question, “That was Jean’s.She didn’t need it anymore.”  
“She didn’t?”  
“No.”  
  
The conversation stops and Millie returns to grooming.  
  
Susan takes a look around the room, unsure of what she’s still doing here.  Privacy is an odd concept between them given they once shared a room a third of this size with no concerns over modesty past the first few days.  It took her years to be remotely as comfortable with Timothy as she was with Millie, if she ever did reach that point.  She doesn’t know why she’s suddenly comparing the two of them - this is a new habit, a new pattern.  She wonders if she did it when he first entered her life, though she gathers she must’ve.  They were so different.  Tim was so shy, so reserved, it seemed he needed her so, and when he was injured, she could think of nothing else but to stay.  Millie seemed to be the life of every party, every room.  She could make friends with absolute strangers.  She was kind - infinitely so.  And she didn’t need Susan.  Susan could offer her nothing and Millie seemingly needed nothing.  It took until they met back in London for her to realise how false that was.  How much Millie had needed her.  But Susan, even here, doesn’t know what she needs, let alone wants.  It’s a new world, in so many ways.  
  
Movement catches her eye and Susan realises Millie has now changed into the merlot coloured blouse and navy pants - again she’s taken over by an odd sense of deja vu.  “You look beautiful, you know.”  Susan begins, as Millie dabs on her perfume.  What an oddly intimate gesture - she wonders if this feeling of deep seated possessiveness is something akin to what men feel.  “Whoever they are, they’re very lucky Mildred…” She waits, a moment to see if that was the correct name, “No? Not Mildred.” She rises from the bed and watches.  
“Susan, don’t.”  
“I’m not doing anything - I just want you to know…how beautiful you look.” She brushes a hand through Millie’s unrestrained locks, then cups the side of her face.They’re standing so close Susan can feel the warmth of Millie’s body. The Millie in her mind, the Millie outside of this room is always so sure, so strong - but now, with the other woman unable to hold her gaze, she sees her nerves, her uncertainty, her fear.It occurs to Susan that the strength is for everyone else, but for her it’s bitten lips and twitching hands.There’s a drastic switch which happens when Millie is with others as opposed to what happens when they’re alone.“Susan, stop it.” Millie practically pleads, her voice huskier than usual.  
“Stop what?”  
“Stop this teasing, this game you’ve been playing for years.”  
“I’m not playing a game.It’s never been a game.”  
“Well I beg to differ.”She arches a brow and tries to step out of Susan’s space, but is matched by Susan, stepping forward until they’re just brushing.   
  
With a deliberateness than betrays her racing heart, Susan kisses Millie, gently, softly, for a moment, before the whimper in the back of Millie’s throat enters her own mouth and breaks her.  Swiftly, it becomes something more, something hot and eager, someone pushes and someone pulls and with a clatter, Millie is seated on her vanity, with Susan standing between her legs.  Susan’s hands are pulling Millie’s blouse out of her pants, running her hands possessively over the skin she hadn’t touched in years, the skin that had once been hers - and how her hands missed the curve of her back, her hips, the closeness that had once existed between them, the world theirs and theirs alone and not even the war could’ve broken between them.  Millie has her hands cupping Susan’s face, pouring every last ounce of love, of devotion, of desire, into the other woman, heart racing and breaking with every second that passes.  And just as swiftly as it began, it ends, with their foreheads pressed together, cheeks damp with tears.  “I’m afraid I’ve made rather a mess of you,” Susan whispers, running her thumb beneath Millie’s lip, trying to wipe away the dark lipstick that’s smeared.  “I’m sorry.”  And with one more gentle brush of her lips, she steps back and leaves the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: True Fact - UC Berkeley, suspended their campus-wide commencement ceremonies in 1970 due to ‘campus unrest’- which began the tradition of each department held their own ceremonies. In 1990, the university invited the Class on 1970 to return in cap and gown for services held before a CAL/UCLA football game… That said, I totally fudged the date Chez Panisse opened by about a year.
> 
> AN2: Soundtrack suggestions: Florence & The Machine's‘Big God’; Nina Simone's ‘Either Way I Lose’; Aretha Franklin's ‘Runnin’ Out of Fools’; Pulp's ‘Like a Friend’


	6. Here Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re not really going back are you? Come back to bed and let her wonder what you’re up to.”

* * *

 

 

Susan looks about the dimly lit living room and tries to imagine herself living there.Of having taken the great adventures Millie had planned for the both of them at Bletchley until their choices brought them here, a land no less foreign than India, but ry as she might, she can’t.She can’t imagine her life without Timothy, without the kids - and that was something she’d never have had.But if she’s being honest with herself, she also cannot fathom life without Millie in it, even with the decades between meetings.Just knowing she’s out there, should she need her, had been enough for Susan’s day to day living.Which isn’t to say she didn’t once desire Millie in that way.To say so would be a lie.She just wasn’t brave like Millie, like Simon.She wasn’t strong like they were - able to go against everyone in her life, let alone a God she was no longer certain about.  
  
She had heard whispers that those people were starting to live life out in the open, of fighting their persecutions, of…existing, and while she wished them all the best of luck in the world, it wasn’t her, not really, not deep down where it counted.  She picked a speck off the blanket wrapped around her and dropped it onto the floor.  Hadn’t that always been the gulf that lay between herself and Millie, even when there was nothing more than thin cotton separating their bodies, curled together to stay warm, to stay sane?  Wasn’t that why she allowed Millie to make the plans for peace time while she danced around committing to it?  This life wasn’t her.  It wasn’t her who kissed Millie, it was some sort of ghost, an echo of the past -  
  
“Mum?  Why are you still up?” Claire’s voice stirs her from her thoughts as she stands in the darkened kitchen.  
“Claire - I thought you’d be out until all hours!”  
“It was too loud and too many people.”She pads into the living room and settles down beside her mother, stealing some of the blanket for her bare legs.“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this weather.Couldn’t sleep?”  
“Mmmm” Susan murmurs, motioning for Claire to curl into her side like she had as a child.    
“Where’s Millie?”  
“Out.”  
“Ah…” Claire can’t help but raise a brow and smirk.    
“Does she go out often?” Susan asks, running her fingers through her daughter’s hair, but she simply shrugs.    
  
Claire can feel her eyes grow heavy between the near darkness of the room and the  warmth of the blanket.  She wonders if her mother knows…that… About Millie.  While she wouldn’t call her mother prudish, she just couldn’t imagine a situation which would involve her mother learning about the existence of homophilia. And despite what Millie had said, she doubt they had women like that in England, in India, and if they had - her mother most certainly wouldn’t have known about them.  But there’s something heavy in the air, a lingering of an argument - she feels like a child once more, walking into a room and feeling the air go sharp all of a sudden.   “Mum?”  
“Yes love?”  
Claire wants to ask if everything is ok, if she and Millie fought, if she misses her father.Claire wants to ask so many things, but the twisting in the pit of her belly won’t let her.“I’m going to bed, you should too.”  
“Yes, in a minute.”  
“Millie won’t be home anytime soon…not likely.” She doesn’t know why she said that.She just knows she’s irrationally angry at the other woman for hurting her mother like this.Whatever this this is.“No, I don’t expect so.”Susan places a brief kiss on her daughter’s forehead before Claire sighs and drags her body up and makes her way down to her apartment below.  
  
With Claire gone, the house returns to the stillness that only seems to happens late at night.  It’s the sort of stillness that lends itself to melancholy memories - the perfect conditions for recalling things better left buried in time, but never quite seem to stay this.  Susan sighs and rises, making her way to the kettle and turning it on.  She can’t seem to recall when she drank this much tea in her life, truth be told, she was practically sick of it, it was just something to do.  She recalls this feeling pressing down upon her chest - Millie had done this after their first kiss, their first coupling, she had done this once Susan told her about Timothy.  She’d all but disappeared after Susan got married.    
  
The kettle finally whistles and pours herself a cup.  No matter what, Millie always came home.    
  


* * *

 

  
“Not that I mind, but who has gotten into you?  Other than the obvious.”  Kit all but smirks as she lights herself a cigarette and rolls onto her stomach, watching Millie get back into her clothes.  “Nothing.  Couldn’t I just be glad to see you?”

“You’ve never been that glad to see me before.” Kit chuckles, “Oh, I know, is that ‘old friend’ of your still staying with you?”  
“What?”  
“So she is - the one you’re desperately in love with.”Kit lets out a throaty little laugh, “You’re an utter cliché, but I adore you.”  
“And I you.”Millie leans down and places a quick kiss on other woman’s lips before straightening back up.  
“You’re not really going back are you?Come back to bed and let her wonder what you’re up to.”  
“Good night Kit.”  
“Give my best to her!” Kit calls out over her shoulder as she gets out of bed, already setting the room back to rights.

 

* * *

 

“You don’t have to be quiet,” Susan says softly from the darkened living room,“I’m up.”  
“Jesus Christ Susan! You terrified me!”Millie flips on the lights and dims them to an appropriate brightness.    
“The kettle’s still warm, would you like a cup of tea?”Susan rises wordlessly and goes past Millie and turns the flame on.“I’m afraid I’m drinking through your stock of tea.”  
“Help yourself. After rationing, I try to indulge in almost everything I can, as often as possible.”  
“Have a good date?”  
“Fair enough.”  
“Your lipstick’s smudged.” Susan smiles softly, preparing the tea, the sugar as Millie goes pale and pulls out her mirror from her purse and checks.    
“No it’s not, you brat.”  
“No, it’s not.But if your date was only fair, you wouldn’t have had to check.”  
“You could’ve just asked.”    
“Where’s the fun in that?” Susan asks, taking the water off and pouring it into the cup.    
“Where indeed.”Millie takes the cup from Susan and sets herself down at the kitchen table where she lets her head roll back.If she were another type of woman, Susan would’ve put her hands on Millie’s shoulders and smile down at her, but she is who she is, and so she fixes herself another cup of tea and sits across from the other woman.“It occurs to me that all this late night tea sipping may be what’s keeping you from sleep.”  
“I could never sleep when I was stuck on a problem, you know that.”  
“Oh, are you stuck on a problem?” Millie asks, being rewarded with a swift kick to the chair.  
“Now who’s the brat?”  
“You.You’ve made me spill my tea.” Millie pouts.  
“What are we going to do?” Susan asks as she tests the temperature of her tea.  
“Oh Susan, I know what I would like to do, but I’m fully aware that’s not an option, so I suggest we continue on as we have for the last oh…twenty six years.”  
“Because that’s worked out incredibly well for us both?” Susan shoots across, irrationally irritated by the smirk on Millie’s lips, the quirk of her brow.  
“I don’t know, I’d say you got the better end of that stick.”  
“Would you?”  
“Husband, children, a home, happiness.Respectability - that was always a big one for you -”  
“And it wasn’t for you?”  
“I’ve never been interested in being respectable.I was always more concerned with being happy.”  
“Why is that, Millie? And don’t shrug, don’t be flip, or snide, or charming about it.Why is it that I don’t know a single real thing about you - not even your name?”  
“Because you’ve never thought to ask.You’ve always been so cerebral, so busy trying to break the world into digestible, understandable little packets of code that you rarely engage in the world and those of us who inhabit it alongside you.”  
“I don’t mean to, you know -”  
“I do, and so did Timothy.He loved you a great deal - that was the only thing that made it all even remotely bearable.” A sadness falls over Millie for a moment before she smiles and shakes her heaviness off, “Still - that doesn’t solve your current predicament.From my end, I assure you, I’ve moved on - if you’re worried I’m sitting here, wasting away from want of you, I’m not.You’re not the first person to have broken my heart, nor were you the last.The occupational hazards of being a gypsy I suppose.”  
“Yes.” Susan agrees softly.She knows what Millie is doing, she’s making the choice for her, even if there is no real choice.She’s preserving the threadbare remains of their friendship.She hates herself for letting her do this.  
  
They finish their tea as they talk about this and that: what is still left on Susan’s list before she returns to London, who’s coming to the barbecue tomorrow.  Safe topics.  They wash up their cups and turn off the lights and walk down the hall where they say goodnight and enter, side by side, into their own rooms.   
  
Susan doesn’t even bother turning on the light, she’s been here long enough to know where everything is in the dark.  She sheds her robe and leaves it on the foot of the bed and tries to make herself comfortable.  Claire’s right, it’s so hard to get used to this weather - neither hot nor cold - always requiring a blanket, a sweater, another person.    
  
She remembers another time when she was cold, waiting outside of Millie’s flat for her to return - her cheeks red.  She remembers the look on Millie’s face when she climbed the stairs and rounded the corner and found Susan leaning against the door all but shivering.  It wasn’t a smile so much as a spark.  It was another night where they sat across from each other at a kitchen table.  “Where do you go when you go out?” Susan would ask.  
“Out,” Millie would respond.“I go out.”  
“But where?”  
“Lately I just walk about.”  
“But why?I said I’d be over.”Susan’s not irritated so much as confused.They had made plans, they had so many documents to go over, problems to solve, truths to uncover.    
“Because I’m not certain if you’ll be here when I get back.”Millie admits, rising to pull out the papers they still have comb through.    
“Why not just find out?”  
“Because what if you’re not, Susan?” Millie asks, turning away.The Millie of this memory isn’t strong enough to hold her gaze for too long, her heart healed but still tender.    
“What if I am?” Susan asks.The Susan of memory isn’t strong enough to get up, to confront or comfort her friend, so she sits and sips her cup.  
“Well, this way you’re both here and not.My very own Schrödinger’s cat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Songs for this chapter include Blood Orange's 'Best for You'; Louis' 'I Thought The World of You'; Ben Howard's 'Promise'; Soko's 'We Might Be Dead by Tomorrow'; and Future Island's 'Grease'


	7. Hitting The Ground

The next morning feels like a dream. 

Susan would say she was hungover, except she hasn’t had a drink save the glass of champaign at Claire’s graduation lunch. But here she was, dry mouthed and with a headache, eyes bleary and hurting. Maybe it was because she overslept - it was well past ten in the morning and she’d been getting up at seven. She couldn’t help it though - she had tossed and turned until she finally fell asleep when the sun began to shine into her room. Still, she finally rises and dresses and makes her way to the kitchen. “Morning you.” Millie greets her, with a voice that’s slightly more sympathetic than her smile. “And how are we doing this morning?”  
“Why do I feel like I want to die?”  
“I don’t know - maybe you’re catching something? Sit. I’ll make you some toast - unless you want something else?”  
“Toast is more than fine, thank you.” Susan doesn’t have the heart or the energy to argue so she sits and watches Millie as she moves around, putting the kettle on, slicing the bread and toasting it. She doesn’t comment on how Millie should wear dresses more, as the one she’s wearing is particularly flattering. Nor does she say anything about how her hair, when it’s pinned up, reminds her of being young and slightly infatuated with the other woman. No. She sits there and simply thinks them instead, until Claire arrives.

“Your mum’s getting sick.” Millie explains as she plates up the buttered toast, cut into soldiers, and the tea and places them in front of Susan.   
“Oh, I’m fine.” Susan argues, half-heartedly biting into a piece of bread. “I’ll be fine.”  
“I’m sure you will be, after your breakfast. But just in case, Claire, go get the blanket from the living room.” Millie asks, as she begins to pull items out of the fridge and pantry. 

Susan argues, but as her daughter wraps the familiar blanket around her shoulders, she feels infinitely better. She offers to help before the guests come, but Millie shuts her down and Susan settles into her chair, content in listening in to Claire and Millie’s chatter about the party the night before. 

It’s obvious that there’s something on the younger woman’s mind - a quick look between the other two confirms they’re in agreement about it, and finally after excruciating moments of forced conversation about something or another, she takes a deep breath. “What does it feel like? Falling in love?”  
“Is this about Peter? Because dearest, he’s not a the right one for you.” Millie cautions.   
“Why do you want to know?” Susan asks, taking another tact before responding with a very maternal, “Also, who’s Peter?”  
“He’s a boy in one of my classes - as charming as he is insincere.” Millie explains as she prepares a pitcher of … Some mysterious concoction.  
“It’s not Peter.” Claire laughs, “I swear. It’s no particular person at all.”  
“This doesn’t seem to be a ‘no particular person’ type of question,” Susan counters.  
“Well it is. Simon seems so heartbroken and I want to help him, but I just … Don’t know at all what it’s like and I can’t ask my friends because they’ll laugh at me. You’ve both fallen in love at least once so you’re both my best and honestly, only option.” Claire leats out a deep breath after her rambling answer.   
“Well, I do feel sorry for you,” Millie teases, nudging the younger woman with her shoulder. “If we’re your best and only option. Susan, did you want to take this one, seeing as she’s your daughter?” She grins and winks at the other woman who’s gone rather ashen at the thought of having to talk about this with her daughter. It’s not that she doesn’t want to, or that it’s her daughter - it’s that she doesn’t know how. She isn’t sure she has the words for this conversation. “I just…Love is…love? You just know, I think?” The look of terror on her face must’ve been enough for her daughter to take pity on her. “What about you Millie?” Claire asks, trying to hide a smile at her usually composed mother’s reaction. “What was it like for you?”  
“How do you know I’ve even been in love?”  
“You have been, and it was tragic - I can tell.”  
“Oh you can, can you?” Millie smiles softly as she stops her work at the kitchen counter. “Well yes, I’ve been tragically, successfully, and fleetingly in love. It’s different every time and every time it’s exquisite.”  
“You’re romanticising it.” Susan chastises from the table, wondering if she was the tragic love affair.  
“Romanticising love?”  
“Yes.  
“Absolutely! If you can’t romanticise love, my darling child, what can you romanticise?” She wipes her hands on a dish cloth and takes Claire’s hand in hers and spins her around the kitchen. “Besides, falling in love isn’t the problem - that’s the best part. It’s when you land painfully and abruptly upon reality - that’s the part that hurts.”  
“Why?”  
“The world shatters,” Millie explains, stoping their prancing about, “Your soul is ripped from your body and you’ve still got to trudge along as if everything is…fine.” Millie shrugs and resumes getting the food ready for the party. “And it’s only then do you realise what heartbroken truly means.”  
“Does it happen to everyone?” Claire asks, sitting down across the table from her mother.  
“Yes. One way or another. Even,” she drops her voice to a conspiratory whisper, “Your Auntie Jean.”  
“Really?” Both Gray women ask, curious about this fresh drop of news about the reserved and distant figure.  
“Oh yes. But you mustn’t be like her. When it happens to you, you mustn’t harden your heart. You must pick yourself up off the ground, dust yourself off, buy a new lipstick, and try, try again.”  
“Easy for you to say,” Susan teases, “You’re so good at it.”  
“Because I’ve had practice from a very young age.” Millie’s smile fades from her face and she shrugs, “Every one I’ve met has broken my heart in some way or another and I’m certain I’ve broken more than my fair share. Such is life.”

The mood in the room chills slightly - even as Millie flips on the radio and resumes getting everything ready for the party. Realising she may never get a chance like this again, to dive into her elusive friend’s past, Claire continues, rising to help with preparations. “And who shattered your world?” The words are hesitant and with a forced lightness, “Was it that police man of yours?”  
“Police man?” Susan asks, shocked at this development. There was never any mention of police men when she knew Millie. Given her rebellious streak and her…proclivities, she’d always stayed as far as she could of authority figures.  
“Where on earth did you hear about him?” Millie laughs as she begins to shape and prepare hamburger patties.  
“Oh, I don’t know. Auntie Jean mentioned him? Or Hayley?”  
“Mmmmm - remind me to have a word with them.” Millie raises a brow and quirks her lip, “Pass me that bowl please? No, certainly not the police man.”

Mother and daughter wait for a further explanation but none comes.

“That’s it? That’s all I’ll get? Mum, make her tell!”  
“Are you going to pout all day or are you going to help with this party of yours?”   
“Go on, help out,” Susan prods her daughter with a nod, wrapping her blanket tighter around herself, ignoring the look of concern from Millie. “Besides, I’m surprised you’re not used to it already, Our Millie is a vault.”  
“Your mother as well, it’s all part of the ‘Official Secrets Act’. We could tell you, but then we’d have to kill you. And you’re so charming to have around. Very useful to brining in the mail, doing the gardening, all that… Now, can you start the salad?”

* * *

“Susan?” Millie asks softly, nudging the half-opened door to Susan’s room, “I’ve brought you some tea. Oh - I’m sorry.” She has the good sense to blush, turning herself back around to step out to the hallway. “Don’t be silly,” Susan chides, slipping her blouse over her slip and opening the door further for Millie, “You’ve seen me in much less.”   
“Yes, well we didn’t have much of a choice there.” She returns into the room and sets the tea down on the bedside table. “Feeling any better?”  
“A little, but not much. I can’t imagine what it is.”  
“Maybe it’s just time?” Millie suggests, “The first time your body has had a chance to rest.” She takes in the other woman’s straight face and begins to laugh, “I’ve been in California too long, haven’t I?”  
“I dare say you have.” 

A knock at the door reveals Claire, changed for warm weather, with a large floppy hat atop her head and another in her hand.

“Millie - Simon says the door to the garage locked him out again - can you let him back in? And mum, I brought you a spare hat so you don’t burn.”  
“Thank you darling. Are your friends here?”  
“Not yet.”  
“Claire,” Millie begins, “Be a dear and convince your mother to rest until guests come?” And with a pointed look at Susan, leaves the room to the Grey women as she goes to rescue Simon.  
“You heard her, mum. Bed. Guests won’t be here for a bit, and even then, it’s quite permissible to make an entrance.” Claire takes the quilted blanket and drapes it over her mother’s body as she settles down on the bed.   
“I’m so sorry darling, I don’t know why I’m so poorly today. Stay with me for a moment?”  
“Until you fall asleep?” Claire teases, tucking the blanket around her mother, like her mother had done for her countless times.  
“Yes.”

From outside, they can hear Simon and Millie cheer, then the sound of wheels on gravel and then the smell of charcoal beginning to burn.

“I should close the window, otherwise your room will smell all night.” Claire rises to close the window, then stands to look out of it. “Mum, did you know Millie could pick locks?”  
“It doesn’t surprise me.” She admits, skirting the truth slightly. “Why?”  
“She said you taught her. What did you all do during the war that you needed to know how to pick a lock?” Claire asks, turning to face her mother.   
“Nothing near as glamorous as you imagine dearest. Clerical work. File folders get locked all the time… A hair pin, a nail file, some wire… Millie was always resourceful.”  
“Are you sure that’s it?”  
“I don’t recall your imagination running away with you like this growing up,” Susan smiles and yawns. “I think Millie’s right - maybe a quick nap before your friends come over?”

* * *

Susan wakes an hour or so after that - the house unnaturally quiet. She feels better, but also guilty for not having gotten up earlier, but she simply cannot shake this chill and this weariness in her bones. She rises and stretches, then takes the floppy hat and sunglasses left for her and makes her way outside. 

She watches, unobserved for a moment - Claire and a few of her girlfriends are lying on blankets on green, green grass sunning themselves while a few more friends are playing badminton further back by the flowers. Off to the side is Millie, in a short dress and a big hat, grilling and chatting to Simon and a few of the boys. Susan can’t help but grin that despite all the years that have passed, Millie is still always found in the centre off a group of men. “Susan!” Millie calls, waving her over, “Come over and meet some of Claire & Simon’s friends.” And so she makes her way over and meets with Devon, and Steve, and Michael, and lastly Peter, who was as charming, as Millie said. “Take over for me, men!” Millie orders, handing over the grill tongs as she takes Susan’s arm and leads her off to the other end of the yard with a patio table and umbrella. The living room blanket is already draped on the chair and she gratefully wraps herself in it while waving to her daughter. “That was Peter?”  
“Indeed.” Millie grins, “He’s a nice enough kid really, just very much into sowing his wild oats.”  
“You don’t think he’s sowed them with Claire, do you?”  
“He may have tried,” Millie begins carefully, “And I may have dropped a word or two to him about how ill-advised that would be.”  
“Thank you for that.”  
Millie nods her head to the side in a gesture of understanding and accepting the thanks. 

They take in the scene before them and Susan can’t help but sigh with contentment, basking in sun and watching. “Even after India, there are times I remember being cold…so cold we never thought we could ever get warm enough.” She looks at the kids along the lawn (because that’s what they are, kids) and can’t help but think what a vastly different life they have. She can’t tell if it’s due to age or geography, but she feels a moment of sadness for her own parents who must’ve thought the same about her. 

A slight clinking draws her attention and she looks over to see Millie shaking a small bottle of nail polish. “Here, let me.” Susan offers, extending a hand and shifting in her seat. Millie wordlessly hands her the polish and Susan begins to touch up the slight chips at the tips of the other woman’s short nails. “Casualties of this morning or last night?” Susan teases, her voice low, her eyes focused on her work. Millie remains silent enough for it to be an answer. “I see.” She cannot help but remember the many nights they spent in Bletchley like this, Susan polishing Millie’s fingers as they pushed through problems and theories and rumours. She thought those days would never end, and yet, in the end it was a very short span of time.

“Did you ever know who brought you up to the big house?” Millie finally asks, slipping her hand out of Susan’s and laying them flat on her own thighs, tips still wet.  
“No.” She seals the bottle and leaves it on the table, re-adjusting to her former position, watching the children.  
“Never wondered? Seems rather unlike you.”  
“I had some suspicions, I suppose. I didn’t really think about it once we began. Did you?”  
“Mmmm, yes.” Millie shakes her head at the boys silent offer of a hamburger from across the yard. “A friend of my father’s. I saw him around here and there, but I don’t think we ever spoke a single word while we were there.”  
“And after?”  
Millie simply shrugs, “Didn’t see much of anyone I knew after. Gerald, welcome!” She welcomes the new addition, a rather handsome young man who’s found his way past the fence.   
“Hi Miss!” He politely trots over to them and extends his hand out to Susan to shake.   
“This is Susan, Claire’s mother.”  
“I see where Claire gets her beauty from.” He grins.  
“You shameless flirt you. I’ll have you know, she’s entirely too mature for you, I on the other hand, am just right. Now, tell me, were are your classes? How’s your mother doing?”  
“Mother?” Susan asks under her breath.  
“She’s quite well and said to say hello.”  
“Well give her my love back. The boys have just finished grilling, so you came at the perfect time.”  
“Thanks Miss. Will we be seeing you at the protest tomorrow?”  
“Ah, you’re blowing my cover as a mild-mannered Brit.” Millie teases, “You’ve done your duty as a polite young man, off you go.”  
“It was very nice to meet you.” He nods to Susan before he makes his way to his friends.  
“Well…” Susan began after a moment, “Where do I begin? His mother?”  
“She’s married to Claire’s history professor.”  
“And…?”  
“And she used to work with Iris and Hayley over at Presidio.”  
“Ah.” 

A moment passes between them.

“Millie, how dangerous are these protests?”  
“They are…not without risk.”  
“Like?”  
“Police. Tear gas.”  
“Bullets? Guns?” Susan asks, and again, Millie’s answer is a silent affirmation. “And you’re there at them often.”  
“Not often, but yes, I’m there.”  
“I see, and how often do you let Claire go?” Susan catches Millie’s gaze and holds it firmly.  
“I do not ‘let’ Claire do anything, she’s her own woman, who is very much her mother’s daughter.” Millie begins, reminding her friend of their own misadventures, “But I have taught her how to be safe, and that her entire education rides on her not being deported.”  
“Deported?! Surely it’s not that…Millie!”  
“War is an awful, horrible thing, and these kids, these kids aren’t taking it like we did Susan! They’re incredible.”  
“We didn’t have a choice Millie! They were bombing us, they were killing everyone.”  
“You’re right, we didn’t have a choice, but these kids do! America isn’t defending anything outside of their own economic interests. There comes a time where thoughts are not enough. When we have to put our bodies on the line as much as our minds. When we have to act. ”  
“I just - I cannot believe you’d both be stupid enough to put yourselves in danger like this. It’s foolish and I expected better from you.”  
“Silence will protect no one and do no good.”  
“It will protect you. It will protect Claire. In this case, it will protect you both.”

They are at an impasse and neither seems particularly willing to budge. 

“I’m going back in. I don’t feel well.” Susan admits, tightening the blanket around her. Millie watches her go back into the house and sighs. The older they get, the further their thoughts, ideologies, and paths diverge. With every day that she spends with Susan, she realises just how unrealistic she has been in her harboured affection for the other woman. And with every night that falls, she is reminded that her heart doesn’t care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Funny how we’re still arguing over some of the same key issues after all these years. I will say, it would be unrealistic for Millie’s character to live and work in Berkeley and not have become somewhat left-leaning. This would’ve (and does) put her in conflict with Bill, but that’s another story for another day. As for the protests, there was indeed one in May of 1969 that lead to then Governor Reagan declaring a state of emergency and lead to the occupation of Berkeley for about a year. What’s interesting about that one is despite the Bay Area being a counter-culture hub, the face off was originally about the use of a park… Anyways, if you’re interested, google ‘People’s Park Berkeley’.


End file.
